The following scenario is not a rare occurrence. A client comes into session with what appears to be the weight of the world on their shoulders. Their typical bubbly energy is deflated, and then they muster their explanation, “I bombed the audition…” I’ll admit to them I’m surprised because I am. While evaluating talent is not part of my job, I’m able to see, however, how dedicated my clients are to their particular opportunities. For instance, it will come up in sessions for weeks at a time with my client detailing all the effort they put into this opportunity. So, of course, I express my empathy for how devastating a loss this is, and then ask “what happened?” The answer is always a bit different, but it’s also the first clue as to what’s really going on.
Sometimes their answer is “I was 20 minutes late,” other times it’s “Well I went partying the night before,” or “I invited my ex over just to talk.” Either way, the explanation is always something that’s so clearly a poor choice that there’s never any need to point it out. Their first mistake is always something that speaks in direct contrast with their desire to book the job and their prior behavior of showing immense commitment to nailing the audition. That’s when the little bell goes off in my head, “hello self-sabotage!” The legendary RuPaul calls it our “inner saboteur,” an admittedly more glamorous personification of the phenomena.
Generally the client themselves will point out that they think it was self-sabotage or sometimes I’ll simply ask if they think that could be at play. Once we agree on this hypothesis though, the next question is always “why would I do that?” As a therapist, I always reflect it back to my clients first to offer an explanation, but eventually, we get to the part of the conversation where I provide education. There are three things I tell my clients: We’re attracted to what is familiar, we desire a sense of control, and we’re afraid of the unknown.
Of course, this list overlaps in many ways, but each point is important to emphasize on its own.
1. We’re attracted to what is familiar.
Familiarity attracts us because it’s evolutionarily beneficial! That means it’s a good thing generally. If we were traveling in an unknown area looking for food and saw a berry that looked familiar, that would be a potential sign it was safe to eat. Sometimes, however, this nice trait backfires on us and we’re attracted to something familiar…but it’s familiar in a bad way. If you keep miraculously dating the same type of jerk over and over, this may be why! It’s not just people and things that can be familiar though, it’s also feelings and scenarios. Sometimes we’re drawn toward situations or recreate situations because they’re familiar. Luckily, realizing that this familiarity is a bad thing at times can help address the issue.
The Actor’s Comprehensive Guide to Self-Care2. We desire a sense of control.
We all long for some sense of control in our lives. Being in a field where you have very little control can make this desire come to the forefront. Sometimes this desire for control empowers us leading us to make positive changes, and sometimes this desire leads us to blame ourselves for things that aren’t even our fault so we can feel some semblance of control. Unfortunately, sometimes we take it even a step further, and go ahead and mess things up on purpose so that we feel a sense of control! It leads us to feel good in a strange way because we know exactly how to fix it and can pretend that nothing bad will ever happen again. The reality is that we need to come to terms with the lack of control that we have, instead of continuing to chase it.
3. We’re afraid of the unknown.
Like our attraction to familiarity, fearing the unknown is evolutionarily understandable. We might stick with areas of land because the alternative is the unknown and we stick with people for the same reason too. While this fear protects us, it has its limits. As we all know, growth comes from trying new things, from risk. We can never know for sure which risks will pay off and which risks could get us hurt though. That’s not to say we should all become risk-takers and never play it safe! That’s for you to decide. However, when we’re self-sabotaging, we’re not really playing it safe anymore. We’ve decided that the pain we’re experiencing is better than the potential pain that’s out there. Recognizing that we’re not really self-preserving anymore is important, and recognizing our ability to handle pain should more come our way, is even more important!
The main takeaway is that awareness of our fears is key. Realizing the emotions underlying our behaviors, and how we are limiting ourselves is the beginning of freeing ourselves. While fear of pain is human, we cannot let that hold us from progress. Failure has to be part of the equation! Failure can lead us forward while self-sabotage simply holds us in place. So get out there, put your “inner saboteur” on mute, and fail spectacularly!
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